fifi

What about these pots? The glazed one looks a bit big for me but I know some others that may have an interest. I am curious what you pot mavens think of the soapstone. Unusual concept, to me at least.

I made a trip to my local Hong Kong Market today. While browsing the cookie aisle, I noticed they had some cookies that looked like those waffle sugar wafers, you know, the ones with the dry waffle cookies with sugar filling? Anyway, they had durian sugar wafers. I chickened out.

Question... If I find the clay pot I am looking for, should I have one for Mediterranean style cooking (like the bean dishes) and another one for Asian (like braised meats)? I am wondering if the seasonings from one would permeate the pot and make it not so good for the other.

Hong Kong Market let me down on the clay pots. All they had were the small, one serving sand pots and these really huge pots that wouldn't fit in my oven. But they did have this hunk of pork that I couldn't pass up. It looked like it was cut off the ham, the skin like ivory and the fat layer under it bright white. The meat was darker red than supermarket pork. This may not be "the other white meat". It is slowly braising in a mixture that includes the star anise and the place smells like Dong Ting's kitchen. The pot hunt continues.

If you are really lucky, when the kids are grown they will have fun experimenting along with you. I really enjoyed the few years my son lived with me when he was in his 20s finishing school.

My daughter lives in the district as well. She also ordered in. She had to trek the few blocks to her office today and that was ok but she just couldn't make it to the grocery, got home and didn't have the groceries to persevere. We laughed about the poor guys doing delivery tonight.

I suppose that my definition of "experienced cook" is someone that understands techniques and the principles behind them so that they can adapt and cook without a recipe. It is very liberating. And just as neverending. There are still some things I haven't really mastered and am looking forward to expanding my repertoir. I buy a lot of books just to read about the techniques. Another trick is to read several recipes for the same "dish". You start to spot the commonalities and recognize the important techniques. That is a fun process to me.

Not at all. I would call it being creative. I have a very few things that I continue to cook from the recipe. Mostly, recipes are inspiration and starting point. I consider myself an "experienced" cook and one of the most fun things is to see what is fresh or on sale and then dream something up.

I am pretty much where Mudpuppie is on this one. If we believed all of the doom sayers about the dangers in our food supply, the streets would be littered with bodies. I sure wouldn't want to go back to "the good old days". Have you ever read about the food supply in, say, Victorian England? That isn't to say that someone has to take the role of watchdog. That is one of the jobs of a free press. Does any of the hype change my eating habits? No. Not unless there is something very specific like a recall of Brand xxx lot number xxx for reason xxx. But I don't recall one of those instances actually affecting me.

This thread on cooking beans in a clay pot reminded me of a dish I used to get at the now-gone Dong Ting Chinese restaurant in Houston. It was called Clay Pot Pork. This was about the best pork dish I have ever eaten. It was served in a clay pot, I think called a sand pot from what I was able to google. The pork was lean with a nice fat cap in a very flavorful broth. I think there was some soy in there, maybe a touch of orange and star anise. I also think it was cooked at a low temperature in this clay pot for a long time. After googling for recipes, I think I am on the right track. Does anyone have a favorite recipe? As to the pot, I will see what Hong Kong Market has and report back. For those not in Houston, Hong Kong Market carries what I think one would find pretty much anywhere in Asian markets. I am off to find a pot and a piggy. edit: to correct the link to the new thread split from the original

And we had to trudge through it five miles to school, uphill, both ways.

Aw, it isn't THAT dirty. ice crystals (snowflakes) form around a microscopic piece of dust, pollen, whatever that is floating in the air. You are breathing it so what is the difference? While I wouldn't want to eat snow downstream of some belching factory, for the most part it isn't any dirtier than the rest of the world. The world has never been the pristine place some would have us believe. So I say go ahead and make snow cream with the kiddies. The few times that we got enough snow here in Houston to do that, snow cream was the first thing to happen. If there was a forecast for snow, the stores would sell out of cream. One time we stirred some sweetened condensed milk into some milk and used that. It was wonderful.

Ah, Mudpuppie. The memories of okra slime. When I was young, my dad started on his pickling adventures. Since the okra was erum... abundant (we were covered up with the stuff) he decided to pickle some. Being an okra pickle newbie, he thought it would be a good idea to cut those tough old caps and stems off. The okra snot was unbelievable.

If fajitas are done "right" the onion and pepper are grilled (or maybe griddled in restaurants) along with the fajitas so they couldn't be strictly vegetarian. But then, maybe they don't do them "right".

Now I am curious, hathor. Fresh okra this time of year? Is it greenhouse grown? Okra is a hot summertime climate vegetable.

Oh good lord... this is going to set off Mayhaw Man. Rob Walsh's Are You Really Going to Eat That? has a great essay on the slimy, creepy little vegetable.

Patricia Wells At Home in Provence has a killer recipe for rabbit that is a basic brown-in-olive-oil-then-braise with preserved lemon, white wine, several heads of garlic and a bouquet garnis. I do it often with chicken thighs as well. BTW, I highly recommend the book. Lots of great and accessible recipes.

No apologies needed for the "suburbs" comment. Houston is one, big, flat, homogenous blob. But we have an amazingly diverse population in all of that flatness. Some of the areas get pretty tacky because we don't have zoning and no one has ever been able to come up with a decent sign ordinance. I would guess that you couldn't find the cow heads because of the BSE thing. I have usually seen them there, especiallly around the holidays. It is a bit off-putting to some folks. It is kind of fun to hang around the meat case where they are and watch the reactions. I think you have to arrange for the lard. I make my own so I haven't tried it. Most of them have a chicharone operation going and I intend to try to get some lard from that some time soon. It is usually a bit more toasty that what you make yourself in small batches. The one you went to may not have some things if they are in a more upscale neighborhood. That could be the case NW. I can't explain the cost of the Rio Reds other than a high demand here because everyone waits for them.

How the heck do you make a vegetarian fajita? If you tell me that they use some kind of funky soy product, I just might hurl. That would be a terrible thing to do to an innocent burrito.

Which Fiesta did you go to? Some of them are kind of ratty. Then I went into the new one on the west side of town at Texas 6 and Bellaire Blvd. The produce under those bright lights was awesome.

And a big welcome to you LDLee! Great to have another Houstonian aboard. I have been to the festival at Messina Hoff and was really surprised at the quality of the wine. I am not a wine nut by any stretch of the imagination, but I know what I like. I thought about the grape picking but August... in the sun... doesn't sound like a good time.

One of my compadres is wondering if Bookbinders is still good. He hasn't been to Philly in years.

If I were on staff and the chef put potato peelers in MY stocking, I would stuff him in a stock pot! I never heard of the serrated peelers. That sounds like a really good idea for the things you mentioned.

I think that the clay imparts a flavor of its own as well. Water from an unglazed terra cotta jar, chilled by evaporation in dry desert air, is about the most delicious water you will ever drink.

Paula... Are you talking about unglazed inside surface earthenware? That would make some sense because it would build up absorbed flavors over time.